Hot Pursuit

… And the winner is: US Bank and the new Vikings stadium.
Well, that really depends on one’s perspective. 
Perhaps this should read: And the losers are small town newspapers and the rural communities served by US Bank.
The forthcoming Minnesota Vikings stadium in Minneapolis will be called US Bank Stadium when it opens a year from now, according to media reports published this week. The deal is worth $220 million over the course of a quarter century, reports say.
The deal with the Vikings isn’t expected to be made official until this coming Monday. 
This will be US Bank’s first stadium entitlement. The new Vikings stadium will become the fourth NFL facility to have a bank as title sponsor. 
I must admit I am torn about this week’s announcement. While I probably should feel pride that one of the banks I have done business with for more than 20 years is taking on the stadium name, I know exactly what that means for my business. 
I’m sure it will continue a pattern of hardly any money being allocated for print advertising, especially in the small rural towns where US Bank is represented.
US Bank has a branch in Blooming Prairie as well as a number of other neighboring communities, including Owatonna, Austin and Albert Lea. When I took over the ownership of this newspaper in 2009, I quickly learned that US Bank does very little advertising—at least around here. I’ll be the first to admit advertising is our livelihood and what keeps us in business. 
Prior to 2009, the banking institution ran some pretty big ads featuring its services on a regular basis. 
US Bank frequently runs the same type of ads to this day quite often in the weekend editions of both the Minneapolis and St. Paul newspapers. It makes me shutter every time I see those ads.
But you pick up our newspaper and you would hardly know US Bank exists in this rural area. 
A local banking official once told me that all the major advertising is earmarked for the metropolitan area and not the rural areas. The local officials have even tried to get some of the advertising piece to more aggressively promote their branches, but to no avail.
US Bank is the fifth-largest banking association in the United States with 3,172 banking offices in 25 states and 5,016 ATMs.  
It just frustrates me what little regard the upper management of US Bank appears to have for the rural areas. It seems like they’re a little out of touch with what I would envision as an important part of their business. They obviously once saw value in investing into these smaller communities. 
The bank doesn’t fumble an eyelash with dumping millions into a stadium, but then won’t promote the very existence of its ties to rural Minnesota and other areas. 
US Bank could really score a touchdown if it would consider pouring some more money into its marketing and advertising to all locations, especially those outside of the big cities, where it has branches located, in addition to the new stadium. 
The last time I checked life does exist outside the confines of the Twin Cities. Perhaps US Bank could take note of this and go in hot pursuit of making some larger marketing dollars available for all their branches, big or small.